Salem is my twin sister. She loved me. She protected me. She forgave me, even after I failed her. I just got her back after searching for three long, lonely years.

Then there’s Clay. Sweet yet intense and nursing a dark past of his own, he’s all the redemption I don’t deserve. He wants to open me up and know the insides of my soul. I want to let him, but I’m scared he’ll run from what he finds.

But I can’t have them both.

My name is Aria. And today, I must choose. One of the two people I love has to die.

In moments like these, everything slowed. Salem always joked that it was life’s way of making sure you didn’t miss the turning points, the important bits. As if gravity sank heavier and heavier with the weight of the moment until the world was too heavy to turn and everyone held their breath.

It certainly felt like that now. My next action, my next word, would change all of our lives.
“Aria,” Clay’s deep voice reached my ears. “Whatever happens…I love you.” The usual assuredness and authority was gone. Instead, strain and hurt had crumpled up and shoved into his throat. Choose me. Save me. Love me.

Before him my life had felt like a stack of old movies; frames missing or out of order, muted crackling sound, flickering and shuttering away, unloved and unseen in an old unused cinema.

Then I found him. Or he found me.

He created a warm shield around me where I could be safe. He coaxed away all my layers and shed all my masks and his love soaked right into my skin, right into the very soul of me. He pulled out the fossil buried inside that had been my heart and breathed life into me.

How could I give up the man I loved? The one who loved me with a fierce and unwavering passion, the man who made me feel like I could defeat demons as long as he was by my side.

Winking in the threads of sunlight piercing through the solemn gray clouds, seed fluff twirled about me like swirling, dancing couples. Spinning around like Salem and I used to do in our backyard, hands clasped together tightly, turning round and round, eyes to the sky, our twin voices giggling and floating into the air like dandelions.
She had been my shield before Clay.

How could I end her? I just got her back. For so long we shared almost everything, and she protected me. Her whole life had been about protecting me. Because she loved me that much.

How could I turn against her, toss her away like an old broken toy?
But I had to choose.

I could see us now, the three of us making a chain like when I was a kid, folding pieces of colored paper into rectangles, cutting out an arm, a leg, and half a head, and unfurling my new patterns in the light to reveal a line of paper dolls. Clay, Salem and I − we were all just paper dolls in a paper chain, me in the middle, each end pulling tighter and tighter until something had to tear.

Even now as I stare between Clay and Salem, trying to digest our impossible situation, Hope is still there, that terrible pixie, fluttering on my shoulder, whispering.

Maybe it doesn’t have to end this way?

Fuck you, Hope. Here’s the truth.

Nobody is coming.

No one will save us.

And someone isn’t going to make it out of this forest today.

“Choose,” my sister screamed. “It’s either him or me.”

My fingers tightened around my gun in a reflex. This was it. I either ended her. Or destroyed Clay.

I squeezed my eyelids shut for a moment, just for a moment of peace. Just for an instant I could shut out the inevitable, and in this blessed darkness I believed I could conceive a way that both could exist in my life. A way that I could choose Salem and Clay.

You can’t have both.

You tried.

You.

Can’t.
Have.

Both.

Choose now.

But how?

What do you do when someone puts a gun to your head? Clay’s words came back to me, echoing as loud in my mind as if he had just spoken them. You refuse to bend. You push back. You find another way. You take that gun off him and put it back in his face. But you do not give in.

Find another way…

I knew what I had to do. A kind of peace settled on my skin, as delicate as gossamer, as light as silk.

I opened my eyes to a world of bright light until my vision adjusted. The torn and pained faces of the two people I loved came into focus. The only two people I’ve shared air with while we slept, the same two people I’d crawl into Hell to be with, and the only two people I would die for. I forced the ghost of a smile forward.

And turned the gun on myself.

There is a giveaway for signed paperbacks, Amazon gift cards and a Coach wristlet

Hanna is the bestselling author of the Bound romantic suspense series and the Dark Angel fantasy series. Although she writes in more than one genre she can’t write a book without weaving together a complicated plot and filling it with twists. She writes what she believes: good people can do bad things, ordinary people can do great things, and choose love above everything.

Eternally restless, Hanna has lived in Indonesia, Australia, Germany, Scotland, England, Croatia and Ireland – everything she owns fits into one suitcase. She’s planning her next move with her gorgeous (and understanding) partner right now. If not writing, she can be found wandering a dusty market in Marrakesh or trekking a mountain in Peru, often using her travels as settings in her novels.

When I was a little boy, the best thing about the holiday season was unwrapping presents on Christmas morning — tearing off the paper and tossing it on the floor. Now that I’m a man, I like to unwrap slowly, deliberately, taking my time to savor what lies before me. I still like to throw the wrapping on the floor, but now I know the best gifts come wrapped in lace.

And unlike when I was a kid, I won’t get sick of this present by New Year’s. I’ll definitely be playing with this girl day after day after day.

After six years avoiding my hometown, the last thing I expected when I returned was a wannabe bad girl to unwrap my heart and rip open my soul. But that’s exactly what happened. Now if I can just get the hell out of my own way, maybe I’ll finally get the best gift of all — her!

Come get unwrapped by Drew this holiday.

I sat back and studied the canvas. I’d finally gotten it right — the way his lips turn up in that smile that makes both my heart and panties melt. It had taken me over a dozen tries to get it just perfect, but I finally had. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel any better. I thought if I could capture Drew’s smile on my canvas, my pain would somehow lessen. Because I’d always have his image, that his leaving me wouldn’t hurt so bad. It hadn’t worked. The pain in my heart was just as sharp, just as overwhelming as it was yesterday and the day before. I knew I’d never get over him. I knew it like I knew the deep blue color of his eyes, the rough spots on his hands. I knew it like I knew the way his lips tasted, the feel of his thick brown hair.

Prescott Lane is the author of First Position, Perfectly Broken, and her new release, Quiet Angel. She is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, and graduated from Centenary College with a degree in sociology. She went on to receive her MSW from Tulane University, after which she worked with developmentally delayed and disabled children. She married her college sweetheart, and they currently live in New Orleans with their two children and two crazy dogs. Prescott started writing at the age of five, and sold her first story about a talking turtle to her father for a quarter. She later turned to writing romance novels because there aren’t enough happily ever afters in real life.

There are three things you need to know about Elizabeth Bennett: she’s smart as a whip, always in control, and lives by a set of carefully crafted rules. She’s learned the hard way that people you love the most always hurt you in the end.

But then she meets Declan Blay, the new neighbor at her apartment complex.

A tattooed British street fighter, he’s the campus bad boy she’s supposed to avoid, but when he saves her from a frat party gone bad, all her rules about sex and love fly out the window.

She gives him one night of unbridled passion, but he longs for more.

With only a cardboard-thin wall separating their bedrooms, he dreams of possessing the vulnerable girl next door forever.

One night. Two damaged hearts. The passion of a lifetime.

Ilsa Madden-Mills

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Ilsa Madden-Mills writes about strong heroines and sexy alpha males that sometimes you just want to slap.

Can love really conquer all? – Book 6 in Katy Evan’s breakout New York Times bestselling series that began with REAL.

SYNOPSIS

Maverick “the Avenger” Cage wants to rise to the top and become a legend in the ring. Though he keeps his identity well guarded, he’s known on the fighting circuit as the new kid with a chip on his shoulder and a tattoo on his back that marks him as trouble. He’s got a personal score to settle with the Underground’s one and only Remington “Riptide” Tate.

As Mav trains, he meets a young girl—the only other new person in the town–and sparks fly. When things get heated between them, he finds out she’s none other than Reese Dumas, the cousin of Remington Tate’s wife. A girl who’s supposed to root against him and a girl he’s supposed to stay away from.

But Maverick fights for the woman in his heart, and the monsters in his blood. The world’s eyes are on them and the victor will go down in history as the ultimate fighting champion; the ultimate LEGEND.

***This is a standalone novel with no cliffhangers. This book is not part of a series.***

Warning: This book is intended for readers 18+ due to some explicit language and mature themes.

After escaping an abusive relationship, Chesney Ward fights to take back control of her life. She longs to leave behind her troubled past, but she craves more than what her small town has to offer.

Freedom.

Adventure.

Love.

The Air Force provides the escape she needs.

After arriving at her first duty station, Chesney meets Staff Sergeant Zane Thomas, a Special Forces airman used to exercising control in all things, which she doesn’t mind. However, she has no idea she’s getting more than she bargained for.

Zane thinks no woman could ever make him want to settle down. That is, until he meets Chesney, the small town girl with a big heart. Her southern accent and big brown eyes make him forget how to breathe.

Over time, their lives will change and they will be forced to part ways.

When Zane reappears many years later, Chesney’s life is turned upside-down. Not only is she faced with sharing a life-altering secret with him, but she is also given a second chance to rekindle what they once had years ago.

Will Chesney be able to love him back to her, or is Zane too broken to be saved?